The country practicing the mystic art of confusion

Senator Rand Paul, an MD, has courageously taken on Dr. Fauci and the Deep State over the confusing – and often wrong — advice they have dictated during COVID. I will get ahead of this story right now and say that I don’t believe Rand Paul killed himself.

I have long said in my columns that the story the coronavirus came from an open market in Wuhan was bogus from the start. Fauci pushed that story while downplaying his involvement in funding the Wuhan lab. That falsehood plays to our stereotypes of the Chinese, their food, and their adage, “If a dog is barking, it is likely undercooked.”

Taking on the bullying and the unaccountable, central command-and-control bureaucracy of the United States takes guts. When an issue like this is so divided along party lines, those of us in the libertarian middle like to focus on facts and not the “shirts and skins” of Washington’s hyper-partisan politics. Sen. Lindsay Graham tested positive for COVID after getting vaccinated. He got a nice note from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer encouraging him to “stay positive.”

I have been vaccinated, and it was my choice. But I also understand folks who do not trust the government on this one. The “Trump vaccines,” which are all the vaccines we are taking, are not taken by everyone. Kamala Harris famously said she would not take a “Trump vaccine.” No wonder African-American vaccination rates are only 36 percent.

History teaches us that it is not in your best interests when government has to shame you, pressure you, lie to you, bully and threaten punishment to gain your obedience. From my generation of drafting for the Vietnam War, recently to Obamacare, what big government pushes you to do is seldom in your self-interest. Explore your own trusted sources and make your own personal decisions.

Now the Delta variant scare is upon us, and the government is preparing to shut us down again. Their real concern seems to be an alarming spike in freedom in America.

Biden is talking about using government goons to go door-to-door to get people vaccinated, like Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons. It’s like “We are from the government and have been sent here to ask you: ‘Do you accept Dr. Fauci as your Lord and Savior?’”

Democrats like stunts. Texas Democrats giddily took self-aggrandizing pictures of themselves on a jet heading to D.C. to prevent their Republican colleagues from voting on Texas voter ID laws. It is all about them. I do not remember Dr. King being all happy and smug when he protested, all pleased with himself as he went about his cause of marching for equality. These Texas Democrats flew to D.C. drinking Miller Light and came back to Texas with six cases of Corona. And guess what? If they needed to go get meds for their illness at the pharmacy, what did they have to show? A photo ID — the same thing they had to show to get on that airplane.

Texas, like many other Southern states, ended the government payments that kept much-needed workers sitting at home as our economy needed them to reopen. It is having the effect we Southerners wanted: It is causing Californians to move back to California.

So what is the government’s incentive to shut down businesses again? Maybe they are looking to use the pending lockdown to destroy the few small businesses they didn’t ruin the last time around. And who is advantaged during a shutdown? Government workers, teachers and tech executives who still get full pay to sit at home. But look at what Sweden and Florida did. Their results are better than most.

Dems, who are drunk with power, cannot wait to get emergency powers again at the state and local levels. Gavin Newsom, Governor Hypocrisy, is chomping at the bit to get his power back. And wouldn’t you? Just try getting a big mask-less table for your friends and lobbyists at the exclusive French Laundry Restaurant without emergency powers.

Newsom did get recalled over his Draconian measures that damaged the few small businesses still left in California. Bowing to pressure, he recently opened up the state’s remaining businesses. Who’d have thunk that the cure for COVID in California was a governor afraid of losing his power?

Ron Hart is a syndicated op-ed humorist, award-winning author, and TV/radio commentator; you can reach him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or Twitter @RonaldHart